Yeah, the show’s stupid. I’m just watching for hot shirtless Desmond and Sawyer. 
(I also think it’s been one of the best shows on TV for a long time.)
Here’s what I don’t get: Widmore’s cover story to the world seems to be that he doesn’t believe the plane found in the trench (which may or may not have been staged by him unbeknowst to the world) is real so now he is trying to find the “truth”. But what is his connection to the island? The ostensible cover story is that he is looking for Desmond, and pretending to be the good patriarch trying to find his daughter’s true love, but there’s nothing connecting Desmond specifically to the island, and there’s nothing connecting Widmore to Oceanic 815. What cover story could he have to justify investing all these resources hiring a freighter, helicopter & crew?
I missed this episode when it aired, and tonight I finally got to watch it via iTunes. So here are my thoughts.
I think that Ben is sincerely trying to protect the island and his people, but he’s one of those guys who thinks that the end justifies the means. He probably also subscribes to a utilitarian philosophy, so if a couple of people have to die for the good of the masses, then that’s a sacrifice that he’s willing to make.
I’m sure that it was the mercenaries from the freighter who killed Karl, and maybe Rousseau. Ben’s a bastard, but he loves his daughter, and I don’t think that he’d deliberately put Alex in harm’s way. And those snipers were not being very careful with their fire; if it was the Others, you’d think that they would avoid spraying several clips of bullets in the direction of their leader’s daughter. For that matter, why would the Others shoot Karl? He’s one of them, and he hasn’t done anything remotely bad enough to justify being killed. No, I think that it was those guys who were skeet-shooting with machine guns. I think that Naomi dropped them off before her helicopter crashed, and they’ve been looking for the Others ever since.
About Rousseau, I think that we’ll eventually learn that she’s Annie, Ben’s childhood friend. She and Ben were married, but something that happened before the Purge messed up her mind. Maybe she was assigned to the Tempest station and was exposed to the nerve gas, or maybe it was time travel experiments, or some other weirdness, but in the end she suffered a total schizophrenic break and ran off to join the French expedition.
I think that Widmore faked the crash. Tom had evidence that it was Widmore’s people. Yeah, the evidence could be fake, but on the other side Captain Gault has produced no evidence at all to support his claim that it was Ben. Just a black box which no one on the island is capable of reading.
Frank is being played for a sucker. Widmore hired him in order to get him out of the way; he can’t tell people that the wreckage was fake if he’s on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Needless to say, this also means that Widmore has to make sure that Frank never gets back to civilization.
Hurley thinks that Matthew Abbadon is an attorney with Oceanic. We saw him briefing Naomi about the mission - does she think he’s with Oceanic too?
Frank called Oceanic when he saw the “not the pilot” on the news, and then was part of the mission shortly thereafter. Yet he knows about Widmore. He could have been told or could have done some independent research that brought him to that conclusion and he went on the mission anyway.
In TV Land, there’s always enough people who “don’t give a shit why we’re here we just want to do something awesome” to carry out secret missions.
Widmore is somehow connected to Oceanic, we just don’t know how. If he’s got the resources to fake a crash (if he indeed did it), he’s got the resources to fake people into thinking his organization is Oceanic. Or hired by Oceanic. Or to keep the public at large from knowing that there’s a freighter at all.
A few random thoughts. Tom tells Michael that the Island won’t let him kill himself. This is how he was able to more-or-less walk away from what looked to be a fairly bad accident and why he couldn’t shoot himself (though it occurs to me that Tom could have switched guns on Michael during the fight in the alley and given him one with dummy bullets).
Could the same thing have happened to Jack? Remember, Jack was about to jump off a bridge when an accident occurred right behind him. Could “the Island” have caused the accident to prevent Jack from jumping?
If you stretch things far enough, maybe that is how Jacob/the Island cured Juliet’s sister of her cancer. Juliet wanted to return home to be with her sister. By curing the cancer, Juliet was convinced to remain on the Island.
Could other similar things be happening to others of the O6 as well? Maybe that is why Hurley and later Jack are both convinced they need to go back to the Island. The Island is causing things to happen around them and the only way to be free of its influence (so to speak) is (ironically) to return?
Also, could this be what Tom meant when he told Michael that “some” of them could come and go as they please? Those who know they will be returning can leave at any time but those who may be tempted to remain off the Island will have problems and will encounter increasing “attempts” by the Island to convince them to come back.
Finally, are these “attempts” related to the “course corrections” that Ms. Hawking told Desmond about in his first time travel episode.
Second thought. Remember something from the Lost Experience on-line game a few years back? (Spoilering since some people still consider it a spoiler since this hasn’t come up in the show itself yet.)
The reason for the DHARMA experiments on the Island involved the Valenzetti Equations. The Equations predict that the human race will become extinct in the near future. The Numbers are the “core values” of the Equations. The experiments on the Island were attempts to change these core values and thus save humanity.
Suppose both Ben and Widmore have information that a major disaster of some sort will be happening “soon”. Plague, asteroid impact, global warming/flooding, Abba reunion… something that will wipe out a large portion of civilization.
Suppose they also both think that the Island, because of it’s odd properties, will somehow escape the fate of the rest of the world.
So, maybe both Ben and Widmore see the Island as a “lifeboat” that will allow a select group of people to escape the end of the world and both are trying to gain control of it for that reason. Ben wants to bring “good” people to the Island (based on Ben’s definition of “good”, of course). Widmore may be being more altruistic, but my guess is that he would be providing a safe haven to anyone who is willing to pay him enough for the privilege.
Maybe that is the source of the conflict between Widmore and Ben. Maybe that is why they are fighting over the Island.
This seems to fit all of the known facts. The only thing I can’t quite work in is time travel, which seems to be becoming important to the series. Maybe Ben and/or Widmore are time travelers themselves and are from or have seen the future. Maybe that is how they know about the upcoming apocalypse. Maybe the odd effects associated with the Island are the “course corrections” that we are told are associated with time travel.
I dunno, just random thoughts. Any feedback?
So, I understand it’s stopping for a while, due to the writers strike, is that right? When is it expected to resume?
There’s a movie remake of the Mamma Mia musical coming out soon. Close enough?
Peter Morris: the next episode is supposed to air April 24th. chews on nails
People, people, we’re missing the most important part of this episode:
At approx. 27:40, we see the very top of Naomi’s ass-crack, thanks to her low-ridin’ jeans. 
I was going to post this. I’ll admit I had to do a frame-by-frame to make sure – and yeah, that was some definite ass crackage.
I’m pretty sure they said something like April 24th or 25th, but take that with a grain of salt.
Another tidbit of information: We re-watched it, and froze the scene in the pwn shop to see what the inscription on the back of the watch said. My wife translated it as something along the lines of “Let’s work together and grow this company well!” She said it was a generic sort of message you might get at a company party where everyone gets a watch with the same inscription… not a lot of insight there, I’m afraid.
Is anyone out there playing the Find 815 online game? Is so, any insights? Does it offer any clues at all or is it just a distraction to further suck us into the show?
According to the producers, the Find 815 game is not considered canon. They apparently gave the people making the game some information and put some restrictions on what they did but anything “new” from Find 815 will not necessarily be in the show. (Note that the fake wreckage in the show was found where it was in the game though.)
They also said that the Via Domus game is also non-canon. The mobisodes are canon however, as is the Orchid orientation film that was shown at ComiCon. (I think it was somewhere on the season 3 DVD too.)
I don’t know if the Lost Experience game from a few years ago is canon or not. I think it is considered canon but can’t remember seeing anything specific about it.
Sounded like an air gun to me - or, more likely, a typical “TV Silencer”.
I hope Danielle isn’t dead - she was one of a very few non-idiot characters on the show.
Oh, and for those who were insisting that Tom wasn’t gay…nyah nyah!
-Joe, saw his first Lost HD Episode
Late to the game, but we have a few weeks. Maybe this thread will pick back up.
My thoughts:
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Did anyone else get a Monster vibe in the final scene? Maybe that was what one poster was talking about ('eerie feeling of death") before the ambush. I swore I heard the telltale mechanical sounds, and then we see the bushes rustle all over. Bright and sunny. Felt like monster time. Then the bullets sound very muffled (silenced bullets are a real alternative possibility).
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I like the fact that Mr. Friendly keeps appearing despite getting offed by Sawyer. He’s a wonderful character played by a great actor. I imagine there are a lot of comic fans on this thread, so let me ask a question. When Friendly appears in the alley in the trenchcoat, did anyone else think he REALLY could have nailed the role of The Comedian in the upcoming Watchmen film?
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I think Michael got out of the hospital and immediately went on the freighter. I think an island that can heal cancer, gunshot wounds, and paralysis, and remotely jam a gun can more than easily heal some broken bones.
Wanna know why the island didn’t save Ana-Lucia, Shannon, Boone, or Steve/Scott? They weren’t interesting to the viewing audience!
*Based on the previews, I guess that Aaron is an O6 member.
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I was mildly annoyed when Carl was shot. I thought “this was a death worth noting?” But when Rousseau took a shot, I perked up. She’s big enough to take seriously. Not sure she’s dead, but even if not, the promo and the death of Carl will keep us guessing. Even if she is dead, we’ll see her again. That’s the great thing about the structure of Lost. Flashbacks bring back our favorites after they die.
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I think Ben is the good-ish guy in the struggle. Someone commented that his radio conversation was in the penthouse. It looked to me to be in the hidden office with all the passports and money Locke found behind Ben’s bookshelf. The guy who plays Ben is incredible. Even when he isn’t speaking, I find myself watching him for his reactions. Give the man an Emmy for this role.
It’s set to start again on Apr 24. No salt needed, but remember that the new time slot is 10PM.
Maybe it’s because I’m shallow, and maybe it’s because of the new HDTV, but we also got a really good look at Naomi’s moustache pretty much the whole time her face was on screen.
-Joe
I thought it was pretty clear that Carl and Rousseau were shot by the freighter mercenaries. It seemed to be pretty heavily foreshadowed by their target practice on deck, and when Sayid asked where the chopper had gone (in the previous episode I think).
Even Alex believed immediately that it was the freighter people shooting – she stands up and says “I’m Ben’s daughter!”. If she thought the Others were shooting at her she wouldn’t have needed to identify herself.
Sly one, that Ben is…he knew the freighter team would be out to get him, and he wanted Carl dead. But as he says to Michael “When I’m at war, I’ll do what I need to do win, but I will not kill innocent people.” And just like *he * didn’t kill Ana Lucia or Libby, he also didn’t kill Carl or Rousseau…but he sure as hell knew that he could get Carl killed by sending him out there with Alex. (Goodwin comes to mind, right?) He had to figure Alex would be captured (in fact, he engineered it, didn’t he?), so how handing her over to them serves his goals I don’t know, but I’m sure it does. At the very least it points out the ruthlessness of the freighter people, to help bolster his claims.
About that water bottle that should’ve shattered on being shot…even if you accept that the bottle’s integrity would have held, shouldn’t there have been two holes? :dubious:
BTW, someone speculated that Ben was off island when he called Michael on the boat, but the scene shows him to be in his secret room (where the passports were found).
We’ve seen this before, so I’m going with CFL not being dead. The people who shot her will not verify that she is actually dead, and she will be involved in some way in rescuing Alex later on.
Also, I’m not so sure that it was the Freighter Folk who were doing the shooting. They were using machine guns on the ship, and these shots didn’t seem like they were coming from machine guns.
MP5s will have a selector with semi-automatic modes. Pretty much every weapon that’s not an actual machine gun (including submachine guns and assault rifles) will.
I hope she’s not dead, because if she is they may never answer the one burning question that I have above all others:
How has Danielle been on the island for 16 years and not have seen a single person until the Losties showed up? Especially in light of all the Other flashbacks that seem to show Ben and his crew having the run of the island (especially Mikhail in his farm bunker and Kelvin in his Hazmat suit of doom).